Mom Shares Stunning Comparison Of Baby Bump With Twins Vs. One Baby
What a difference one more baby can make
People react in many ways towards pregnant women. There’s the people who are always trying to feed you and offer you their seat, the people who try to touch your belly without permission (HISS) and those who always make the “Are there twins in there?” joke. (This just in — you’re not funny.) Even though sometimes you might feel like you’ve got two in there, it turns out the difference in how your belly looks with a twin pregnancy versus a single baby is actually pretty striking.
YouTube vlogger Natalie Bennett, who is already mom to two-year-old twins boys, Liam and Judah, is now pregnant with a baby girl. She recently created a video comparing her belly at 36 weeks in each pregnancy.
It’s incredible to see the difference.
Image via YouTube/Natalie Bennett
Everyone carries babies differently and no two pregnancies are alike. For Bennett, you can tell when she’s carrying one versus two all along, not just in the home stretch weeks before delivery. Here’s a side-by-side of her bumps at week 27.
In her video, Bennett discusses the differences between her twin pregnancy and her current one. Expecting twins is exciting, but as you might guess, being pregnant with only one baby this time around comes with advantages. “I had twice as many doctors appointments,” Bennett says of her first pregnancy in her video. Twin pregnancies are considered high risk even if you have no other health concerns. “I’ve really enjoyed having the freedom to go a couple of months between doctor’s visits this time because I’m not technically high risk.”
Being pregnant with twins means lots more face time with your OB (and ultrasounds of your babies, if you’re lucky) than with a singleton pregnancy. Getting to and from all those appointments is exhausting, especially towards the end of your pregnancy as your belly approaches planet status.
“I have had different cravings this time around but I’m also pregnant during the opposite time of the year,” Bennett tells Scary Mommy. “My twins were a spring/summer pregnancy that resulted in cravings for ice water and fresh fruit. This time (a fall/ winter pregnancy) I want ALL THE COMFORT FOOD! Especially hot wings! Mmmm!”
Another plus? Having a stomach with skin that’s already used to being super stretched out. She explains how during her first pregnancy, she was pretty uncomfortable. “I think overall the fact that my twins pregnancy was my FIRST pregnancy really took a toll on my body. My torso had never stretched out before, my hips had never widened, my ribs never expanded to their limit and my back had never supported that much extra weight,” she recalls. But those days of feeling like a grape about to burst are coming in handy with her current single pregnancy. “My body’s reaping the benefits of having been stretched before,” she says.
And while she’s super busy chasing after two active toddlers, she says having a smaller bump this time around makes it easier to move around. “I had a huge torpedo belly sticking out like a stinking shelf,” she jokes in her video of her twin pregnancy. “It was so heavy, my skin was so stretched and by that time I had this PUPPP rash that was so miserable.”
I’ve seen many a pillow slip under the shirt of my pregnant friends as they contemplate a double baby-sized bump. And as a fellow twin mom, I’ve always wondered how my belly would look if I had only had one baby or how the pregnancy experience would differ. Thanks to Bennett, now we know.
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